The Assistant
by Kaokie
Summary: The staff is running wild, parties are being held, girlfriends are moving in, and Mr. Oliver Wood's assistant is sure that she's going to go insane.


**Disclaimer: **I don't own the Harry Potter Series or anything said series contains. Any characters in this story which cannot be found in that series are of my own making, or references to other fictional characters.

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**Helen Marwick the Saint**

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The day had just begun, and already Helen Marwick was being subjected to the same old tortures that she always was. Honestly, sometimes she didn't know how she made it through the day, let alone the _seven years_ that she had been here. There had been many, many instances when she had sworn that she would go insane and many, many more where it already felt as if she had.

Helen had been awoken at the ungodly hour of five thirty in the morning by the row outside between the groundskeeper, Mr. Albert Stelleg, and the chef, Ms. Sarah Wright. Tired, frustrated, and impatient Helen had apparated right in front of the, giving them a bit of a shock. She had no clue what the chef was doing outside, but she had been forced to break them up before Ms. Wright strangled the old man or he used his shears to stab someone. (She had always been afraid that he might go insane and kill them all with those gigantic blades, one day.) It was far too early for her to deal with their full-on arguments over magic again. If Helen had to remind Mr. Stelleg that "magically retarded" was not an appropriate term for squibs one more time, she was definitely going to scream.

Then she discovered that nearly half of the house had been covered in some sort of strange, green goop, which she could only guess at the nature of. She really didn't want to know what it was, but it was the last thing that she had wanted to find on her first day back to work. She didn't know who did it, but she did have some inkling forming in her head as she stormed up the stairs to the hall where the servants' quarters were.

"Quinn," Helen said loudly, "get out here."

There was no indication whatsoever that the butler was stirring within his room.

"Paxil Quinn, you idiotic man, get out here this instant!"

Faint grumbling could be heard behind one of the doors, and seconds later a tall, lanky stick of a man opened the door groggily to just stare at her.

"Whaddyou want?"

"The house looks like it's covered in hippogriff vomit. What in Circe's* name did you get up to while I was gone?"

"There might've been a party… or two. We might've done some things."

"Well, clean it up. I want it gone before the master returns."

"Not my job."

"It's your job to clean up after your messes. If you can't do that, then perhaps you shouldn't be managing the house as well? Shall I inform our boss that you don't wish to work with us anymore?"

There was a short silence between the two of them. "I'll clean it up."

"Very good." Helen smiled and gave Quinn a quick look over. "Make sure you get yourself cleaned up before you do. You look terrible. Well, I suppose you always have, but try to make yourself presentable?"

"I'll try."

Helen rolled her eyes and stepped over another patch of goop that she found, making her way to the kitchen. The goop had not discriminated between the different areas of the house, she had found. Sarah was there, getting things all cleaned up for the new kitchen maid, so that she wouldn't be too overwhelmed on her first day. Too impatient to make good on her promise to make Quinn clean it all up, she joined in and finished the entire kitchen off with a scouring charm.

The master still wasn't home, yet, so she had planned on taking a little bit of time for herself, but then Quinn started complaining about having to clean everything up on his own and asked Sarah to help, even though she couldn't do much cleaning without magic. In the end, Helen came to their aid. Eventually, their maid, Rena, returned from her own vacation and was immediately drafted to help the three of them finish. Helen tried to apologize to the poor girl, but Rena refused to admit that it was even a problem. She would still probably have a mental breakdown later and say that it really had been a problem and that Helen was insensitive for not seeing that. As it was, she tried to be thankful that Rena agreed to help at all.

They finished at half-past two, and Helen was literally ready to collapse when she heard the front door opening. Please make a good impression for callers, she told herself, don't lie prostrate on the floor.

"Quinn," she said, and motioned to the door.

Quinn got up from his chair. "I know how to do my job."

"Obviously not, or the door would be open by now."

"I'm getting it, Marwick."

"Still not open," she said as he reached for the doorknob.

As she heard him turn it, the horrific realization that he was still in his pyjamas struck her. The door was already half-open, but Helen whipped out her wand and cast it closed again. She ran to his side and pushed him away. He was sloppily under-dressed for butlering, and she was at least in a semi-professional robe. No one needed to know that their butler was a slob; they had hid it from the master of the house this long. She put her wand away and answered the door instead of Quinn, as he ran upstairs to change into his uniform.

"Ms. Marwick, how have you been?" asked the caller. Helen sighed, relieved at who it was, opening the door the rest of the way for him.

"Oh, well enough, Mr. Wood." They hugged briefly. "Welcome back home. How was your holiday?"

"Very good, and yours?"

"Very good," she said, taking her employer's hat for him. "Get anything good this year?"

"Oh, just the pleasure of being with my family," he said, "and the relief of coming home from them to my nearly empty house."

"Sir, you're the only person I know who enjoys loneliness."

"More time to think of plays, yeah? And I'm not lonely. Not with my lovely staff. I mean Quinn, of course."

"Oh, Merlin's long, gray, tangled beard. I hate that man."

Mr. Wood laughed. "What's he done?"

"I'll tell you some other time, sir," she said. "Shall I get your things?"

The master nodded, and Helen removed her wand from her robes again and, with a swish and a flick, wordlessly levitated his bags for him.

"Oh, and Eve's bags as well."

For a few seconds, the floating luggage wavered in mid-air and nearly dropped to the ground before Ms. Marwick caught them again. "Pardon, sir? Eve's bags?"

They say if you speak of the devil, he will appear. The same thing, apparently, was true of Evelyn George, for as Marwick was finishing her question, the woman herself and all her things appeared with a CRACK.

Eve's lips were covered in deep red lipstick, her cheeks with a soft pink blush and her eyes caked with blue eyeshadow. Her curly, blonde hair bounced as she approached, pure white teeth shining as she kept her perpetual smile. Her robes were bright pink and her shoes were a similar shade. And even without the far-too-high-heels she wore, Ms. George was several inches taller than Helen, though still shorter than Mr. Wood.

The sight of her, quite frankly, made Ms. Marwick completely and totally nauseous. She had the kind of airbrushed perfection that people always tried to tell you that no one could really achieve, like those too-beautiful women in muggle magazines, but Evelyn's body and face were that perfect. Of course, magic was involved and that was technically cheating, but an encounter with Ms. George always made Helen spend hours in front of a mirror looking at all of the flaws in her own features. In comparison to Eve, Helen thought she looked like a troll's rear end.

The worst part of all was that Evelyn was the kindest, most compassionate witch that Marwick had ever met. In the five years that Mr. Wood and Ms. George had been dating, she had been kinder to Helen than some of her own family members were. If she was ever swamped with work, Eve would offer to help. If Helen was having family troubles or man troubles, Eve would talk with her for hours. Eve was the sort of amazing woman that should not and could not exist. But, frustratingly enough, she did, and she was Mr. Wood's girlfriend.

And it looked like she was bringing all of her worldly possessions along with her. Marwick held in a particularly nasty swear as she prepared to get the woman's bags. Of course, in her typical manner, Ms. George protested.

"Oh, no, no, no, dear," said Eve, drawing her own wand, "I'll take care of it."

"That's not necessary, Ms. George," said Helen less-than-enthusiastically.

"Please, Eve, it's fine," Mr. Wood said, before adding, "You know, Quinn really should be getting these."

"He's previously engaged." Helen nearly laughed, which was weird, and awkwardly covered it up with a coughing fit. In the end, she just levitated Ms. George's bags along with Mr. Wood's, leading them up the stairs. She followed soon after, but not before asking, "Shall I put Ms. George's bags in the guest room?"

Ms. George's heavily painted face grew even redder as she blushed, and Mr. Wood said, "Um, no, not exactly. Could you bring them to mine?"

This time the bags did not slip, but it was still a bit of a surprise. Not once in the visits that Ms. George made to the house over the years, did she ever stay in Mr. Wood's room. They had just never been that serious.

As she left, Marwick heard the two discussing something between themselves.

"I think the rest of your things will be here in a few days, Eve," said the master. "Do you think you'll be fine until then, dear?"

"Of course, Lolly-ver, you made me bring more than I'll ever need," said Eve, giggling as sickeningly as ever, "I just hope the staff takes it well when we tell them."

"Oh, stop. They've been waiting for you to move in since I met you."

With a CRASH that echoed almost embarrassingly loud throughout the house, all of Mr. Wood and Ms. George's luggage fell to the floor. The couple looked up from the parlour to see Ms. Marwick scrambling to get it all back in the air again, and swore they could hear her say "_Wingardium Leviosa, Wingardium Leviosa, you little numpties_" under her breath as she did.

Because she fancied keeping her job, Helen had to resist just letting them drop wherever, and instead set the bags down nicely before calmly skulking over to her room. She managed not to slam the door, after Rena, as she had expected, accosted her in the hallway for asking her to help earlier. Helen couldn't and wouldn't damage the master's property in any way, but she didn't mind telling off her subordinates. After Marwick was done cursing out the maid, the poor girl ran off in tears and Helen collapsed on her bed, feeling even worse.

No one dared to enter her room for several hours, and the first person that did was the last person she expected.

"Helen?"

"Paxil." Even with her face buried in a pillow, it was always obvious when Quinn entered the room.

"Mr. Wood announced it to the staff that Ms. George's moving in."

"I heard."

"And Rena's still upset."

"I'm a terrible person."

"Why d'you never feel this bad when you insult me?"

Helen rolled over, and he recoiled when he saw her puffy, red, unattractive eyes.

"I'm sorry," she said pathetically.

He would laugh if it weren't legitimately surprising to get an apology out of her.

"You really _are _upset, huh?"

"I'm not proud of it, Paxil, but I cannot stand that woman. And if she's going to be living here, then I am going to go insane."

"Surely it can't be that bad."

"Do you remember when she spent a month here? Do you remember how terrible that was?"

"You were so tense, we had to pry Stelleg's spade from your hands, or you might've beat him over the head with it."

"It was terrible."

"More like hilarious," he said. "Ahem. And terrible."

"I should quit. I should just write my letter of resignation right now."

"No, no, no," said Paxil. "Look. I'll help you get through this. Because if you leave, then I won't have anyone here I can trust to keep me in line. And also, you're my friend, even if you're a bit've a toss-pot."

"Oh, shut it." She gave him a friendly shove. "And I guess Mr. Wood really would be lost without me."

"Yeah! See? And who'd keep Stelleg and Sarah from murdering each other?"

"Not you, that's for certain."

"Exactly! And how's Mr. Wood to plan his wedding without you?"

"Wait, what?"

"You _are _his assistant."

Marwick blinked. "So yeah, that letter of resignation-."


End file.
